


love, or something like it

by valkyrierising



Category: Psy-Changeling - Nalini Singh
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-19
Updated: 2015-12-19
Packaged: 2018-05-07 14:35:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5459987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/valkyrierising/pseuds/valkyrierising
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The rise to the Council is uneasy, too many threats with a few near-death attempts, but nothing permanent. She kills the first attackers with the tricks her mother taught; this skill she hones to the sharpest point that at the end, there is no doubt that she would simply be pushed out. She’d rather die on her terms than die because of an assassination attempt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	love, or something like it

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rosaxx50](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosaxx50/gifts).



> hey giftee, here's a fic about the Duncans, the relationship that Nikita has with Sascha, and a little bit of her rise to the Council sprinkled in there. I hope I delivered because whoa boy Nikita's a complex character to get into, and I hope I did your gift (and Nikita) justice!

The thing that Nikita Duncan learns from a very early age, the only thing she had ever learned from her parental figures, was that love is a weakness. It was straight from Reina and Dmitri’s mouths that she learned what it took to carry the Duncan name. The other thing she learned is to never allow anyone to glimpse a shred of weakness within. That weakness is the difference between life and death, between Silence and Rehabilitation.

 

When Sascha is born, she senses something about her that’s different than the rest of their race. It takes her only a few months as her own interest peaks when she hears whispers of forgotten powers the Psy used to have. She pulls anything that might have knowledge of the forgotten powers. Around the same time, she begins to make her way to the council. She detaches herself as much as possible while still having Sascha within her orbit, thereby guaranteeing her safety. She was, after all, to be the next Duncan heir and no relation to her would be seen as a target to exploit her.  

-.-

 

It’s a simple truth that most of the Psy believe that they’re in good hands, that the Council would protect them. What they don’t know, what has been true for any ruling dynasty, is that there is a dark side. She notes everything about her fellow councilmen; the fact that the Scotts were clearly trying to make themselves the most ‘accessible’ of the council, with Shoshanna taking point and Henry following suit. Ming Le Bon’s training of the Arrows and such was a threat on that basis alone, she knew for a fact that the Arrows were as ruthless as they came, in no small part thanks to him. Marshall Hyde had years to hone his Cardinal abilities,easily making him the de facto leader. And Tatiana? Well. No one made it as Councilor without getting blood on their hands. She files all of them from lowest to highest threatening to her, the highest being Santano and Ming. Nikita keeps her eyes on them at all times.

 

The rise to the Council is uneasy, too many threats with a few near-death attempts, but nothing permanent. She kills the first attackers with the tricks her mother taught; this skill she hones to the sharpest point that at the end, there is no doubt that she would simply be pushed out. She’d rather die on her terms than die because of an assassination attempt. After taking a few days off for recovery, she notices the sloppiness of the work. They learn about the other’s preferred methods of murder: Tatiana likes to keep her hands as dirty as much as possible, paying off others but surveilling her damage a bit too closely. The Scotts with endless paper trails and fake aliases and back-ups to muddy the water. Though it is about as secret as the color of the sky, Ming’s use of the Arrows is disconcerting to the others. Santano takes pleasure in inflicting pain upon young women that the Council accepts as something to be done - the cost of Silence.

 

She shifts her attention between all of them during the meetings but watches Santano and his protégé Kaleb Krychek, most often. As they find out about Santano’s extraneous activities well into their third year as members of the Council, there’s no feasible way to kick him off without causing a disturbance. So they allow this atrocity, if only for the illusion of Silence and safety because going back to the time before is something that no one cannot and will not imagine. She watches Krychek as he’s with Santano, stiff but there’s something about him that’s focused just to the side, seeing something that no one else sees. Whatever he sees, it’s nothing no one can.

 

-.-

 

Nikita doesn’t have days ‘off’, but the moments she can take in between Council work she looks back into their family tree. Her fingers tremble slightly as she went through the electronic records and recalled when she had flagged her; underneath Ai’s name, the E designation was there and she lets out the slightest huff of air.  Her guardians never told her about her grandmother, but she found out about her prior to Sascha’s birth. She had combed through their records to make sure that the child would be healthy. She had just forgotten about the marker.

 

At this point, that she cannot tell Sascha or anyone of her true designation. To do so would be putting a target on her back and sentencing Sascha to death. She was not about to have her daughter being used as leverage or murdered; she’d keep her as safe as possible. She maintained the lie that Sascha was a Cardinal… which wasn’t so much lie as obfuscation of her real powers, but it worked.  

 

The Psy had erased just about every trace of the E designation, among other things, when the introduction to Silence was beginning. What the Psy forget was that there were still records, scattered and hidden tightly among the other races. She was, in her own right, something along the lines of a legend, enough that people would give her what she needed.

 

-.-

 

After months of searching and deflecting questions away from certain interested parties, really Santano’s focus on Sascha was going on gauche as he attempted to find any and all reason to let her work with him, she finds what she’s looking for. She takes the day off in question, leaving Sascha to take care of business in her stead. The book in question, ‘The Mysterious E Designation’, is faded but delicate as she places it into her bag and driving to an unknown location. When she is certain that no one is following, she opens the book and begins to read. Hours pass and she looks up to see the sunset dying, hues of orange and purple blending as she places the book back into the bag. Someday, she thinks, she’ll give this to Sascha to learn about her true potential. In the meantime, she places the book in a bag and hides it in a vault within her office. She places a few searches for the author, but receives nothing, and never looks at the book (or the author for the matter) for over a decade.

 

She can sense Sascha’s fear at being found out, despite the walls. She supposes there’s something the Changelings and the humans take about, a maternal instinct they called it, that is within her since she reaches out as slowly as possible and gives Sascha more and more assignments working with her. Besides the fact that she would work in the Duncan business, it was more to give Sascha the push to establish herself so that when she died, she would be alright. A part of her is impressed that the others cannot break Sascha’s walls, grateful that the girl had enough common sense to hide her weakness, but another part is thankful; it is a small price to pay that she knows Sascha considers her among those to protect herself from.

-.-

 

There’s a name that she hears in passing, the Nightstar compound, amongst people who are worried about the loyalties of Anthony Kyriakus as his focus is singularly on the F-Psy in the compound. The Council rocks uneasily, uncertain whenever major players are on the board but do not affiliate with them. She doesn’t worry much because something tells her that Kyriakus does what is needed to keep the Council as placated as possible without placing the F-Psy in danger. She notes the diligence he takes care of them; he also keeps them as close as possible, never loaning them out to others for more than a few hours. Kyriakus is the same as her, protecting and what sounds like fondness from the words she’s shared with him. There is no doubt that he, like her, had Silence deeply embedded but there’s a part that they didn’t touch that is simply reserved for the Nightstar children.

 

She knows that there’s a chasm between her and Sascha, one she doesn’t believe they might be able to overcome. She isn’t sentimental but she knows that whatever Sascha is doing is what they needed to have done from the beginning. Pride dawns on her as she watches her daughter from afar, creating the Ruling Coalition with Lucas and the other changelings and helps as discreetly as possible. Something like wonder touches her the day that Sascha comes into her room (her second assassination attempt, one that she hopes is the last) and lets her hold her granddaughter. It’s a long way back coming from Silence, but she thinks she would like to see a future where her daughter, and her daughter’s daughter, never have to live in fear.  

 

 


End file.
